


A Temporary Mother

by Ashling



Category: Peaky Blinders (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Gen, Post-Season/Series 04, Trick or Treat: Trick
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-25
Updated: 2020-10-25
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:29:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26831434
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ashling/pseuds/Ashling
Summary: Surely that was a crack of lightning, surely that was a gunshot, surely that was a crack of lightning. Saint Sarah, I’ll make pilgrimage. I’ll cross the Channel for you. Please.Esme doesn't expect to ever see Charlie again, but she does. Once.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 8
Collections: Trick or Treat Exchange 2020





	A Temporary Mother

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Impala_Chick](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Impala_Chick/gifts).



Though her sister’s newborn baby is her primary reason for visiting, Esme does glean a bittersweet drop of satisfaction from the knowledge that Tommy Shelby will never know she set foot on his estate. He who so loves to know everything, to control everyone. She’s lost a husband to him, but she’s bested him on one score, at least; there is more loyalty in that camp to her and her blood and their ways than there is to Tommy and his blood money. She is sure no one will snitch. She lets the children run wherever they like and doesn’t worry about them in this tangle of family; she dips bread in honey and lets herself drink burning smoke right from the bottle. Even when the rain drives them all into the wagons, they only laugh the louder, and even thunder wants to take part in the joke. Happiness has a tiny pink nose and is named Emmeline.

Then there is a hard rap at the door. When the soaked gadje girl that stumbles in, the party goes out. Men in the house, of course there’s men in the house, the Shelbys in London, of course they  _ fucking  _ are, and Esme feels only disgust until she hears Charlie’s name. Ears that stuck out, that child. Just about worshipped John, used to trail about after him when the men went hunting, and cried when John gave him a black and white puppy from the very first litter of John’s best hound. No doubt a foot taller now, but kin still. When the men leap to horses, she does too, and then it’s a hard ride through thick slanting rain until the house suddenly looms, all dark stone, and she has to yank reins hard to avoid galloping into a wall. Above them, so many windows, not a single light on. 

Esme is unarmed. The men go in, single file, backs pressed up hard against the corridor wall to make themselves smaller targets, and she secures each horses with a touch, palm to velvety nose. Not quite fair to use certain charms on dumb beasts, but it does work; they all stand stock still as if frozen, despite the downpour and the eerie feeling that dumb beasts are more sensitive to than even the most sensitive man: there is death in the house. 

There is death in the house and thunder outside it, which masks shots—if there are any shots. Again she is a Shelby, again raging against it. Never again, she told herself once. How many funerals will there be this time? Emmeline’s father is in that house, Emmeline who is still too weak to hold up the weight of her own head. Please, Saint Sarah. Not tonight. The baby is too young, she won’t even remember the sound of his voice. Shivering hard, reserving strength. Esme wants to warm herself from the inside out, but she has endured much worse than this; her patience can hold. Reserving strength. Surely that was a crack of lightning, surely that was a gunshot, surely that was a crack of lightning. Saint Sarah, I’ll make pilgrimage. I’ll cross the Channel for you. Please.

The door swings open fast and she nearly knocks the man over, but it’s only Johnny Dogs. It’s only Johnny Dogs. “You need to—” he says, and she’s already starting forward, skirts lifted in her fists so she can run after him all the faster, down the hall, past the dead body, up the back stairs in the servants’ quarters, past two dead bodies, almost slipping on blood, into the west wing, past a man tied up and moaning under the backhand cracks and sharp barks of Elias, Barney, Lucy’s nephew, to a closed door beyond which there’s finally a fucking light—golden and full, a gas lamp, men everywhere, furrowed brows and somebody crouching by the fireplace trying to get a fire going, a woman’s high voice, singing beautifully. Johnny Dogs pushes aside Caleb and the rest of them scatter, looking to Esme with desperation. In the bed a small body. No, not dead. Charlie. Covered by a blanket up to his chin, a lot of blood, spattered across the face, eyes closed, small lips moving. Singing. The woman’s voice belongs to the boy. 

With a word and a gesture, Esme clears the room; only Johnny Dogs lingers, nurturing the new fire, and she permits that, though only for as long as it takes her to wipe clean the little face, the little neck, and the little hands. Then she tucks Charlie back in, snugly, blankets up to his chin, and, catching Johnny Dogs’s eye, nods to the door: time to go. He hesitates. The woman’s voice is unceasing, smooth and even, note-perfect, and though she is singing familiar, classic lullabies, the sound is unsettling. But Esme doesn’t need Johnny Dogs’ protection, and even if she did, he wouldn’t know what to do in that fight, so she nods at the door again, and finally he goes. It is very nearly peaceful. 

First, Esme takes one long, measured breath, in and out, to steady herself. Then she attempts to draw the woman out. Not with much force; it’s more a light tug than anything. The boy’s eyes snap open. They should be brown, but instead they’re blue-green.

“Hello, Grace,” Esme says.

The boy throws off the covers and sits up straight on the bed, legs dangling off the edge, too short to reach the ground. Despite Esme’s efforts, there is still blood soaked into his pajamas, and a little trickling onto his feet. 

The boy does not blink. Ever. His lips move, and Grace’s voice comes out. “Esme. I didn’t expect you.”

“Until Tommy comes back, I’m the best you’ve got,” Esme says. “Unless his nurse is hiding in the basement?” 

“No, his nurse is dead. Two doors down, in the bathroom.” Grace says it very matter of factly; the boy’s face has no expression at all.

Esme keeps her voice steady and her face as blank as she can, trying her best to mirror what she sees. “Are there any wounded?”

“One. Not one of ours; one of theirs. I left him alive for Tommy to question.”

And what meathook horrors that will bring, Esme doesn’t dare to imagine. “Is there anything else I need to know?”

There. A tiny twitch of the still face, not the whole face, but a muscle to the left of the nose, above the lips, a lift of contempt. “You’re so quick to get rid of me,” Grace says.

Esme spreads her empty palms. “You can stay as long as you want, but it will cost you. And how many years has it been, four?”

The blue-green eyes seem to sharpen. “Three years, eight months, twenty-two days.”

“You’ll be tired, then,” says Esme. She lets herself say it a little gentle, so that it cannot be mistaken for a jab. And it is the truth, too, which helps; bodily possession takes an enormous amount of effort.  


Grace is silent for a moment, and then at last she says, “Looking after this house is a lot of work.” Like agreement. A little gentle too.

“Save your strength, then,” says Esme.

Unexpectedly, the boy rubs his eyes. The way he digs in with his knuckles goes straight to Esme’s heart; it reminds her of her own son. The room is very quiet. His eyes are getting darker in color. She wants to wrap the blanket around his thin shoulders, but she knows better than to move. Sudden movements would not end well. Even a slow movement might be considered provocation if it ended in a touch.

After a long, long time, Grace says, “Will you sing to him?”

“Yes.”

“Until his father comes back?” 

In this rain, that’s four hours, at least. “Yes,” Esme says, at once. 

Still the boy’s eyes are blue-green, still his posture is very straight. The blood is trickling off his feet and onto the floor in a drip, drip, drip. 

It is perhaps a foolish thing to do, to push a dead woman, but Esme has never been reticent a day in her life. 

“Charlie knows,” Esme says. “He knows you love him.” 

The blue-green eyes seem to go glassy, but maybe that’s just a trick of the light. Next thing, they close, and it’s like the strings cut on a puppet; the boy collapses on the bed with a soft thump. Eyelids fluttering. His hair very soft to Esme’s fingers, and her chest feels like it’s been stuffed, or flooded, or otherwise pumped full to bursting. 

Outsider brides both, she and Grace had never liked each other, never understood each other, but she feels she could nod at Grace across a crowded room now; when John was alive, Esme had planned, too, to stay with her children as long as she could. With all the pain that brought. As restless and doomed as that fight was. For as long as she could. Every moment, a glint of light strange on the bridle of a horse that her daughter rode, or an unexpected extra note in the song her son sang as he butchered a rabbit. That was being a Shelby wife, near as good as a coven; you loved your husband; you expected to lose him; you did not trust him with your children’s lives. You did the work of protecting them yourself, whatever sacrifices it took. 

All in Esme’s past, and not something she thought about for a long time, but now, here, as she shushes Charlie’s confused murmuring, it’s the only thing she can think about: Esme got away, Grace didn’t. If Esme dies tonight, she can go to her grave and stay there. Her children will live on without her, saddened but safe, in the guardianship of their aunt, or if not their aunt then one of their uncles, or if not one of their uncles than their first cousin once removed, or if not, then...and on and on it goes. Bitter as it still tastes, in a way, John’s death secured Esme’s own.

Her thoughts are interrupted by Charlie. He’s awake properly now, looking a little scared, but not as scared as he would be if Esme was a stranger, and she gives thanks for that unexpected gift, that he remembers her as family. She tells him there was an accident and says, do you want to change and have a bath? He says no. She asks him, does he want to go back to sleep? He says yes. She kisses his forehead and turns off the gas lamp, and begins to sing. He doesn’t object. It’s enough. He is holding her hand, too, and she can feel the marks in his palm where Grace gripped the gun so hard it left an imprint. The songs Esme are singing are in Romani chib, but Charlie doesn’t seem surprised by this, so perhaps his father sings to him sometimes, and for once, Esme doesn’t resent sharing something with Tommy Shelby. 

The door opens carefully, and Johnny Dogs poked his head in; Esme puts her finger to her lips, and he nods once, and then the door closes after him, the handle turning so slow that there’s barely any click. 

It takes a long time until Esme’s thoughts are her own again. Although Charlie doesn’t seem to remember any of what happened, some instinctual part of him knows that not all is well, and though she reassures him several times that his father is coming, he keeps opening his eyes and asking about it. Esme keeps her mind on her singing—she was never very tuneful—and her eye on the fire, to see that it will keep on burning strong. It does, and finally, finally, Charlie begins to snore. Barely a snore, more of an exhale with texture. His little nose. She wants to kiss his forehead again but that would only wake him up. Humming is acceptable; it’s singing, but quieter. Esme can keep it up for the four hours she promised to Grace. She’s glad of that. She doesn’t think there would be a punishment if she stopped singing—Grace was many things, never petty or inefficient—but it’s still important to her to keep that promise.

Four hours is a long time to think in silence, and by the time Esme hears loud voices down the hall, angry in only the way men are when they’re scared, Esme has made some complex calculations in her head. Depending on whether or not there are more attacks that penetrate the Shelby citadel, depending on how much Grace needs to do, she has another three to seven years left with Charlie. Grace will be terribly weak at the very end, just a whisper of a voice in his ear, only managing a dozen words. But words can make a difference. By then, Charlie will be nearly a man, at the age at which Shelby men begin killing; he’ll need all the motherly advice he can get.

Esme decides she and her children will leave at sunrise. 


End file.
